NHS Islington...

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Exceptional treatment requests

Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) make decisions on how healthcare is provided to local people. This includes new drugs, treatments and health technologies that are available on the NHS.

The PCT’s job is to provide the best healthcare to the largest number of people in Islington and to stay within the budget set by Government. To do this we give a higher priority to treatments that are known to offer the most effective health benefits to patients in the most cost effective way.

Legally the PCT is not obliged to provide every treatment that a patient or a group of patients may request. We therefore develop policies to prioritise treatments based on the resources that are available to us and the competing demands.

The Exceptional Treatment Panel (ETP)

If a patient's GP or other clinician feels that there are exceptional circumstances that must be considered for a treatment or drug to be provided, then they can refer the patient to NHS Islington’s Exceptional Treatment Panel (ETP). The ETP is a committee of experts who will consider each individual case on its merits, and decide whether treatment can go ahead. To see a copy of the ETP leaflet, please click HERE.

The ETP considers the following circumstances:

• Procedures covered by guidelines from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) for Islington that are high cost but low volume. Examples of such treatments are in vitro fertilisation and surgery for obesity.
• Procedures such as cosmetic surgery, laser hair removal and varicose vein surgery.
• Some pharmaceutical treatments that are newly licensed but which don’t yet have NICE guidelines.

Who can make a request to the ETP?

Requests are only accepted from Consultants, General Practitioners in General Practice, General Dental Practitioners or Autonomous Nurse Practitioners, except in exceptional circumstances. It is the responsibility of your health professional to demonstrate that you have exceptional individual circumstances.

Requests are not accepted directly from patients. However, patients are able to write to the panel in support of the case and this information will be presented to the ETP.

Writing to the ETP

Letters of support should be sent to the following address:

Individual Treatment Panel
NHS Islington
338-346 Goswell Road
London
EC1V 7LQ

What happens next?

When the ETP has received your referral from your health professional, they will send an acknowledgment to your health professional which will include the date of when the panel will meet to consider your request. The panel meets monthly and the results of the panel’s decision will be sent to your health professional in the week following the meeting.

All correspondence is managed through your health professional and any queries you have should be directed to them.

What if I am not happy with the decision?

Where the request is declined, your health professional can ask for the decision to be reconsidered if supported by additional and new information. If your health professional feels that the process had not been handled appropriately, he or she may appeal against the decision by writing to the Exceptional Treatment Appeal Panel, asking for the case to be reconsidered. The Appeal Panel has a different membership from the standard ETP.

For further information about the ETP process, please email individualtreatments.islington@nhs.net